At the present time, the frozen foods industry manufactures and sells frozen vegetable/sauce combinations, frozen meat/sauce combinations, and frozen fish/sauce combinations in single serving units for both restaurant and in-home preparation and use. These products are typically packaged in trays formed from aluminum, plastic, or paper board, or packaged in plastic laminate pouches. The methods used to fill the tray or pouch with the substrate/sauce combination are relatively slow and are only capable of filling and sealing a certain number of containers per minute regardless of the size of the container. In other words, the smaller the container, the slower the production rate in terms of pounds per hour. The cost of a frozen substrate/sauce combination singly packaged in single serving units is relatively high because of the manufacturing method used. The line speed for production is limited by the number of containers the closing machine can close per minute. The present enrobing invention is not so limited.
Portion control provides a marketing advantage. Using substrate/sauce combinations in units of single serving size which do not require individual packages is definitely an advantage to either the restaurant operator or the consumer for in-home use since waste and overcooking due to extended holding at high temperatures are eliminated. Packaging in convenient bulk sizes saves packaging costs.
Food service operators can limit waste by preparing only as much product as they need. And, with the "bulk" pack, there are no extra containers to dispose of. Consumers can cater to individual tastes with no leftovers, and the single-serving size is ideal for today's one-and two-person households.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,199,603 assigned to SCM Corporation, discloses frozen food products such as fish, poultry and vegetable frozen products suitable for microwave or oven cooking, which when cooked resemble in taste, texture and appearance fat-fried products. These frozen food products are prepaed by coating frozen portions of the comestibles with an edible oil containing a moisture absorbing substance such as pregelatinized starch, and then applying to the coated portions finely divided hygroscopic, crisp particulate such as toasted bakery, cereal or carbohydrate particulate capable on cooking of giving the appearance of a fat-fried product. According to this patent, the dilatometric profile of the edible oil is critical and is such that the oil is fluid at room temperature but has a plastic consistency at the temperature of the frozen portions.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,972,541 discloses certain hard butters prepared from nonlauric oils such as cottonseed, soybean and other vegetable oils, or from lard and other animal oils and/or fats, or mixtures of vegetable oils, of animal oils, or of animal and vegetable oils. These materials are characterized by having relatively good hardset at room temperature and a sharp melting point at human body temperatures. Hard butter compositions of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,972,541 are employed in carrying out the present invention.
The present invention is in a formulation and process used to manufacture frozen substrate/sauce combinations in single serving units for bulk packaging at relatively high production speeds. The major advantage of the present invention is a substantial reduction in the processing cost of a frozen substrate/sauce combination marketed in single package single serving units. The invention comprises enrobing frozen food portions with a heated sauce coating which is characterized by rapid hardening upon contact with the frozen food without cracking and falling off. Still further, these compositions are characterized in that they do not smear off when transferred by hand from the storage container to the container used to heat the product prior to serving.
Finally, these compositions are characterized by being organoleptically acceptable when heated to serving temperatures of from 120.degree. to 150.degree. F. These requirements are met by utilizing a unique fat system as a base component of the sauce coating.